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Summary of the Kingdom of Christ

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Summary of the Kingdom of Christ The Kingdom of God is Present and Future: An Historical Survey of Evangelical Eschatology and a Summary of Russell Moore’s The Kingdom of Christ David Schrock Is eschatology a contentious subject? It depends, partly, on who you ask and on who they have been reading. More than fifty years ago eschatology sharply divided evangelicals, especially with regards to the timing of the millennium. Coming out of WWII, premillennialism became a litmus test for many Fundamentalists, Dispensationalists, and other self-styled stalwarts of the faith. By contrast, Reformed amillennialists strongly argued for the spiritual nature of the kingdom and wrote against the premillennialists. If you read the books from teachers of this era (circa 1940s – 1970s), both sides make black-and-white distinctions with respect to the timing of the kingdom. Either the kingdom was entirely future, as premillennialists averred; or it was wholly present in the church, with the predominately Gentile church swallowing up the promises made to Israel. In the days when the neo-evangelical movement began (think: Billy Graham, Harold Ockenga, Carl Henry, and Fuller Seminary), division marked the evangelical landscape. Fast forward to today and the scene is remarkably different. In academic circles the rancor and rhetoric is much reduced, even as substantial differences persist. Most recently, I read an irenic and scholarly work defending Dispensationalism published by Dallas Theological Seminary professors. In reading Dispensationalism and the History of Redemption: A Developing and Diverse Tradition, two thoughts occurred. First, as a non-Dispensational theologian, I agree with many of their points. And second, I don’t think the founders of DTS would recognize the brand of Dispensationalism proffered in this book as their own. What has happened? What became of the strong disagreements and near-slanderous accusations? And how should we think of the differences between amillennialism and premillennialism? Those questions are far from academic, as they exist in hundreds, if not thousands, of Bible-believing church. As faithful elders and Bible teachers study to show themselves approved and necessarily read various teachers from various theological perspectives, how should they hold their doctrines and posture themselves against those who differ? Recalling the Last Seventy-Five Years Personally, I have found great help by understanding how the evangelical church at large has considered these matters over the last seventy-years. I find it fascinating and encouraging that there has been a growing consensus among Dispensationalists and Covenant Theologians with a view of Christ and his kingdom that has brought former “enemies” into much closer agreement. Not without eliminating all disagreements, the last two generations have placed greater emphasis on the unifying elements of an inaugurated eschatology—a view of God’s kingdom that affirms its present and future realities. Such emphasis has created space for dialogue and produced greater theological accord. Through this shared perspective, many premillennialists have grown in their understanding of the Spiritual nature of the present kingdom (without denying its future reign), and many Reformed amillennialists have matured in their appreciation for the material (and even national) promises of God’s kingdom. Still, how did this emerging consensus arise? Who were the major proponents driving this “inaugurated eschatology”? And what can we learn from the development of doctrine over the last seventy-five years? These questions bring us to Russell Moore’s book The Kingdom of Christ, a historical-theological survey of neo-evangelicalism’s kingdom theology and its impact on American Christianity since World War II. While the whole book is worth the read, what follows is close summary of his chapter on eschatology, followed by a few examples of how faithful pastors have understood the “already and not yet” aspects of God’s kingdom. Carl F. H. Henry and George Eldon Ladd From the outset of his book, Russell Moore, former Dean of Theology at Southern Seminary (Louisville, Kentucky) and current President of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, points to two twentieth century theologians who were instrumental in bridging the gap between Dispensationalists and Covenant Theologians. Through their leadership—theological and relational—they successfully made inaugurated eschatology, with its “already but not yet” view of the kingdom, the eschatology of modern evangelicalism. First, Carl F. H. Henry was the leading theologian of the neo-evangelical movement. He served as the founding editor for Christianity Today, taught theology at numerous seminaries, and disciple a generation of rising theologians and institutional leaders. His book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism issued a clarion call for American Christians in the 1940s to engage culture. Himself a premillennial, he chastised his Fundamentalist brethren who separated themselves from the world in order to prepare for the coming kingdom. A firm defender of orthodox theology and biblical inerrancy, he argued that citizens of the kingdom were commissioned to be salt and light in the world. For him the kingdom of Christ had present-tense implications for evangelical engagement and Russell Moore picks these themes up in his book the Kingdom of Christ. Second, George Eldon Ladd, a Harvard-trained Northern Baptist, provided the rigorous scholarship and exegetical labor to convince a generation of scholars that the kingdom of God was already and not yet here. Sitting in a New Testament Theology class in 2006, Tom Schreiner said that Classical Dispensationalism (think Charles Ryrie and John Walvoord), not Progressive Dispensationalism (as is mostly taught at DTS today) was dead and dying, in large part because of George Eldon Ladd. Perhaps, his view is overstated, but it bears witness to the way Ladd’s series of articles and books on the kingdom of God changed the discussion. For instance, in a 1986 poll of evangelical scholars, Mark Noll discovered that behind Calvin’s Institute no book was more influential than Ladd’s A Theology of the New Testament.1 This bears witness to Ladd’s giftedness as a scholar and the centrality to the work he pursued. Over the course of his career, Ladd engaged German scholarship on the topic of the kingdom of God. In these studies, Ladd consumed the German works and proved himself to be a first-rate scholar among a peer-group that had for fifty years excluded evangelicals. Thus, his academic ministry created a place at the table for evangelical scholars. Still, some of his most lasting work was intra-evangelical. In turning his attention to Dispensationalism, Ladd another premillennial, made the case from rigorous studies of the New Testament that a view of the kingdom that only considered its future arrival failed to do justice to all the biblical data. In a litany of books (e.g., The Presence of the Kingdom: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism; The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God; The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of the Second Advent and Rapture; and A Commentary on the Revelation of John), he made cogent biblical arguments for the present and future aspects of the kingdom. In time, his name has become synonymous with the “already not yet,” and is still a leading influence and conversation partner with premillennial and amillennial scholars alike. In short, these two men, with others who will be named below, have shifted the whole discussion about the millennium. Many from Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology have moved towards one another, and in The Kingdom of Christ Russell Moore shows how a more Christ-centered, inaugurated eschatology has brought that about in the last two generations. Carl Henry’s Approach to the Kingdom of God In the start of his chapter on eschatology, Russell Moore appeals to Carl F. H. Henry as a mediating voice between premillennial dispensationalism and Reformed amillennialism. In his book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, he makes equal critiques of both: • Henry rightly appreciated the way Fundamentalists opposed the Social Gospel of liberal Protestants. However, he critiqued them for wrongly neglecting the Christian’s “social imperative.” At the same time, he critiqued Fundamentalists for conceiving of amillennialism as a slide towards liberalism. (26–27) 1 Mark Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. p. 212. • Henry was not amillennial. He was open to their arguments, but was never convinced exegetically. In fact, he criticized the “growing numbers of evangelicals ‘revolting against the prophetic detail of dispensational premillennialism.’” (29) • In the end, he did not “deem a millennial view to be a test of evangelical authenticity” and he sought to bring the best aspects of amillennialism and premillennialism to bear on the church and culture. (28–29) In this Henry proves to be a model for us still today. He puts the greatest emphasis on the most important parts of eschatology and chastens us from being overly consumed with the minor details of dates and times. Moore writes of Henry’s view of the kingdom. Kingdom theology was precisely what [Henry] was proposing. In calling on evangelicals to abandon the extremes of the Social Gospel and fundamentalist withdrawal, Henry simultaneously exhorted Evangelical theology to underpin its eschatological convictions with a broader understanding of the kingdom of God. (30) George Eldon Ladd’s Inaugurated Eschatology Inaugurated Eschatology is a view of God’s Kingdom that says it is already and not yet. C. Everett Berry defines it as a “concept . which highlights a theological tension in the New Testament between the temporary co-existence of two mutally exclusive realms.”2 These realms are the “present age” and the “age to come.” From the Old Testament, the Prophets anticipated the age to come with the arrival of the Messiah. However, as Christ’s first advent proved, he came first in humility to die for his people (Matthew 1:23), before receiving his kingdom in glory.
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